I was there on March 26, 1997. I was attending the University of Windsor in my second year. By the time March came around I could barely scrub two nickels together. My buddy and I decided that we were going to head over the river to the Joe and try and find tickets. I gathered up all of the money I could and said if that wasn't enough it wasnt meant to be. We were able to find a couple of tickets that were what we considered a reasonable price - close to $200 each. To this day my girlfriend, who is now my wife has no idea what I spent for that ticket.

We made our way into the arena and found a place to stand as our tickets were not together. I have no problem in saying that was the night that the Wings won the cup, it just wasn't given to them until June. During the brawl the place was going absolutely crazy, and when McCarty gave Lemieux a knee to the head while he was turtling the Joe almost exploded. The best part was when McCarty circled around the Colorada net and put the puck past Roy. To make it even sweeter was that McCarty probably should have been kicked out of the game for his part during the brawl.

Great to read the story as told through Draper's eyes. I will remember every detail of that night for as long as I live.

Wasn't Baxter the one responsible for the acedemic support program we heard so much about when this staff came on board a year ago. I might be wrong on that but if I am right that may be as big of a blow to Michigan football as losing him as our STC.

This to me is the most logical reason that M has dropped to fourth on the parents list. They think that he will be able to hang around with basically the same group whether at UM or MSU. The other options remove him from the proximity of that group.

Who says the team has not been punished? When I played in high school we had a player skip classes one afternoon and have a few drinks. He then decided to show up to practice after school. Across the street from our fields was a set of hills. We always ran those hills before practice but on that particular night the whole team ran those hills about 3 times as much as normal. It did not take a genius to figure out why we were doing the extra running. When the real practice started I think that everytime that player got hit there was a little extra effort put into it. I am sure that the player didn't miss any game time that week. I am also positive that nobody else showed up to practice after drinking again. The coaches were quite effective in gettign their message across. The player that showed up half drunk paid a little more then everybody else did because most of the team got to take their frustrations out on him at some point. (The coaches did not put a target on him at all, he did it himself.) The team did not suffer during the game by having one of the starters on the bench. In fact, in the long term the extra running probably helped us some.

I think that Hoke knows what he is doing and I also think that the whole team will likely be aware of what might happen if they step out of line.

It might not be a fact that RichRod got a raw deal but your arrogant comment about how many people felt he was not the right guy for the job right from the start does support that argument some. If he had been given a chance by those that didn't think he was the right guy then things might have been different.

For the record, I wanted him to, and thought that he would succeed. I also agree that it was time for him to go.

We have had to listen to people calling for Gardner to replace Denard at QB. Just imagine having to listen to people calling for Hagerup running our offense from the super shotgun formation. I can see the meltdown now.

I think that kicking 30 players off of the team actually gives support to the argument that they are a clean program. Looking down at OSU we see the exact opposite reaction and we argued all summer long that made them dirtier. Therefore 1951 Army kicking players off the team makes the program look cleaner.